Situation at a glance: USA hopes for an orderly transition in Syria

The US government says it supports a Syrian-led political and non-violent transition in the country. All groups must be included, said chief diplomat Antony Blinken, according to the State Department, after a conversation with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara. The civilian population, including minorities, must be protected.

A rebel alliance overthrew Syria’s ruler Bashar al-Assad, who has been in power for 24 years, on Sunday. He fled to Russia, where he received asylum. What happens next in Syria will be the central topic of a crisis summit that neighboring Jordan plans to host on Saturday. In addition to foreign ministers from Arab states in the region, Blinken and his Turkish colleague Hakan Fidan will also be there, as will the EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas and the UN special envoy for Syria, Geir Pedersen.

Blinken emphasized that the coalition fighting the terrorist militia Islamic State (IS) can continue to fulfill its task. The background is fighting between militias close to Turkey and Kurdish militias that are supported by the USA. Turkey wants to weaken their influence.

According to the United Nations Emergency Relief Office Okha, around 1.1 million people have been displaced in Syria since the Syrian rebels’ offensive began. The majority are women and children. Hostilities continue in areas in the north and east of the country, Ocha reported. However, the situation has stabilized in large parts of the country.

Israel: Majority of surface-to-air missiles destroyed in Syria

The situation in Syria is also of great interest to its neighbor Israel – the Jewish state at times feared that the power vacuum following Assad’s fall could also endanger its security and that the government troops’ arsenal could fall into the wrong hands.

After the coup, Israel’s air force attacked more than 500 Syrian military targets within 48 hours, wrote the Jerusalem Post. The attacks had permanently and radically reduced the threat potential for Israel, it said, citing the army. The Israeli military has destroyed a large part of the weapons arsenal, including more than 90 percent of the missiles in Syria that can be used to defend against air attacks, of which Israel is aware. Israel also severely damaged other strategic weapons in Syria, including surface-to-surface missiles, drones and fighter jets.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres expressed concern about Israeli attacks in Syria. He stressed “the urgent need to de-escalate violence on all fronts across Syria,” according to a statement released by his office on Thursday.

Hope for an early Gaza agreement

US President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, sees hope for an agreement on the Gaza war in December after a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. At the same time, Sullivan called for more aid for the Gaza Strip. “Let’s make sure Israel is not responsible for the third famine of the 21st century,” Biden’s adviser said during a visit to Israel, according to the Times of Israel. Starving children are not a threat to the Jewish state, said Sullivan. Aid organizations have been warning of famine in the sealed-off Palestinian territory for some time.

Palestinians: Many dead in the Gaza Strip

For the time being, however, there is still fierce fighting in the Gaza Strip. The Palestinian news agency Wafa reported 70 dead in fighting and Israeli attacks on Thursday, including several women and children.

Israeli strikes in the Nuseirat refugee neighborhood in the central Gaza Strip killed 25 Palestinians, medical sources there said. Accordingly, Israel’s military is said to have hit residential buildings there. Media reports even spoke of 33 deaths. The information could not initially be verified. When asked, the Israeli army said it would investigate the report.